Tencent awarded me with key words “don’t fear the road ahead”. Yes, I've never been afraid of the road ahead. / Deng Fei

In my past experience as a journalist, I had the opportunity to interview people from different backgrounds and write about China based on their stories. Professional responsibility in journalism encouraged me to tell stories in the truest extent.

In the spring of 2011, I witnessed the malnutrition and hunger problem among children from remote mountainous areas in Guizhou Province in southwestern China. The suffering of these children shocked me and prompted me to start the Free Lunch for Children program.

This program was started from scratch and was doubted by many. The financial and logistical stress to provide everyday free lunch to millions of children in need is a real problem. Nevertheless, I was not intimidated. The nutritional insufficiency for children in rural area has grown to cause chronic health problems on a demographic scale[u1] . The severity of under-in taking of food by rural youth should become a major concern of ours， many of whom are fathers or mothers. I felt the urge to raise awareness and make material contribution for these children.

With the support of Weibo, Wechat, Alipay and other sponsors, the public became well aware of this issue. The program was put into action through collective ideas and crossboundary cooperation.

After successfully implementing the Free Lunch for Children program, we further initiated a series of welfare programs that guaranteed access to subsistence resources for rural children. These programs included China’s Rural Kids Care, Warm Current, Protect Children from Sexual Assault, Movable Home, Water Safety Program of China, and Let Birds Fly. On the last day of 2015, we initiated Children’s Emergency Foundation. It provided an adoption process that connect urban families that were willing to provide parental care to rural orphan kids.

At the same time, different kinds of concerns and challenges came from all over the world, doubting that we do too much to make it all. But I am not afraid of it, because we constantly discover new problems of children. We cannot stand aside in such a condition and we must change it. This is what we should do and the most important thing.

Our unity forms a public welfare matrix for rural kids, which is a group devotion in working for rural kids. We make an effort to meet their requirements and provide one-stop solutions, which brings us more power and motivation. 

Receiving positive feedbacks from all over the country, we decided to start up our own social enterprise. We united an E-commerce platform and the poorest rural counties to help farmers increase their income, so that they can go back to their hometowns and take care of the old and their children without striving for making a living in urban factories.

In this cross boundary endeavor we chose to most competitive business: e-tailor. It is challenging as few people believe that feelings will create profit, let alone

our lack of experience of business, ruthless competitors, and  hardest selling products-agricultural products. Are we self-defeating? 

But I am still not afraid of it. Because if we cannot help the children’s parents make a living by themselves, the troubles of the children will never be solved. Selling agricultural products out of villages, helping fathers go back home, making Chinese countryside dignified and bringing sustainable development are what we must do.

We discover ecological products in rural areas and businessmen are responsible for producing. I will tell others the values and the culture of the products and our earnest dream. At the end of 2015, the gift packs of Hope Farm touched the mainstream of business circles and all the gift packs were sold out. I think we have found a way of development of

the social enterprise. 

►Why I’m always fearless?

I think it is not because how strong I am but I’m soft enough to feel their pain whenever I hear a child cry, and see a sad family or a polluted river and a bird’s Death-I feel these pains so I take action to change the situation and help them. These are what I must do and insist doing no matter what.

There are many such persons like me in history. However, what makes me luckier is that I found more and more people who are fearless can connect and cooperate with each other.

Therefore, we are able to change status quo and we are able to build a better society.